Fanhattan iPad app helps you find the streaming videos you want to watch

The Netflix price increase continues to be a hot topic and many people are looking for alternative video rental services. On the SOS Computer Talk show on Sunday, we reviewed several of the different services that were featured in my blog post on this topic last week. Many of the existing Netflix customers who are unhappy with the price increase are planning to bail on Netflix on August 31, the day before the price increase takes effect. One of the things I pointed out on the show, however, is that Netflix is still a great value at $16 a month for unlimited streaming and DVD rentals. It really boils down, however, to your individual entertainment needs. If you missed the show, you can download the podcast version here.

One great point co-host Chris Lawson made on the show was the need for a service or app to act as a program guide for all the different streaming video services out there. I went looking for such a thing last night and guess what? A new iPad app just came out for this. Called Fanhattan, it's an elegant and simply-designed navigator for streaming video content on the iPad for Netflix, HuluPlus, iTunes, and ABC.

Using the app you can find movies and TV shows, browse reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, see ratings, view trailers plus actor and crew bios and more. This app is a great first step toward aggregating all the streaming entertainment choices out there and hopefully it eventually will include content from additional services like Vudu, Amazon Instant Video and others. An Android version of the app would be great too.

UPDATE:

The interface for this app has an extensive amount of choices and I missed something I wished for in the above review. Luckily, the folks from Fanhattan contacted me to point me in the right direction.

You can view content from Vudu, Crackle, Amazon Instant Video Blockbuster and others by pressing the "info" button on any Watch Now screen and selecting the services you plan to use. On this screen you also can choose to view all available choices or ones that are specific to iPad delivery. The services are conveniently sorted into groups for ad-supported, subscription and on-demand streaming content and for DVD rentals too. And get this...they do have an Android app ready to go but so few video services are supported on the Android platform that they feel it makes no sense to release Fanhattan for Android at this time. Come on Android developers, stop dragging your feet on this stuff!

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